But now, Mr. President, let me come to the fortification bill, the lost bill, which not only now, but on a graver occasion, has been lamented like the lost Pleiad.

This bill, Sir, came from the House of Representatives to the Senate in the usual way, and was referred to the Committee on Finance.  Its appropriations were not large.  Indeed, they appeared to the committee to be quite too small.  It struck a majority of the committee at once, that there were several fortifications on the coast, either not provided for at all, or not adequately provided for, by this bill.  The whole amount of its appropriations was four hundred or four hundred and thirty thousand dollars.  It contained no grant of three millions, and if the Senate had passed it the very day it came from the House, not only would there have been no appropriation of the three millions, but, Sir, none of these other sums which the Senate did insert in the bill.  Others besides ourselves saw the deficiencies of this bill.  We had communications with and from the departments, and we inserted in the bill every thing which any department recommended to us.  We took care to be sure that nothing else was coming.  And we then reported the bill to the Senate with our proposed amendments.  Among these amendments, there was a sum of $75,000 for Castle Island in Boston harbor, $100,000 for defences in Maryland, and so forth.  These amendments were agreed to by the Senate, and one or two others added, on the motion of members; and the bill, as thus amended, was returned to the House.

And now, Sir, it becomes important to ask, When was this bill, thus amended, returned to the House of Representatives?  Was it unduly detained here, so that the House was obliged afterwards to act upon it suddenly?  This question is material to be asked, and material to be answered, too, and the journal does satisfactorily answer it; for it appears by the journal that the bill was returned to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, the 24th of February, one whole week before the close of the session.  And from Tuesday, the 24th of February, to Tuesday, the 3d day of March, we heard not one word from this bill.  Tuesday, the 3d day of March, was, of course, the last day of the session.  We assembled here at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning of that day, and sat until three in the afternoon, and still we were not informed whether the House had finally passed the bill.  As it was an important matter, and belonged to that part of the public business which usually receives particular attention from the Committee on Finance, I bore the subject in my mind, and felt some solicitude about it, seeing that the session was drawing so near to a close.  I took it for granted, however, as I had not heard any thing to the contrary, that the amendments of the Senate would not be objected to, and that, when a convenient time should arrive for taking up the bill in the House, it would be passed at once into a law, and we should hear no more about it.  Not the slightest intimation was given, either that the executive wished for any larger appropriation, or that it was intended in the House to insert such larger appropriation.  Not a syllable escaped from anybody, and came to our knowledge, that any further alteration whatever was intended in the bill.